From Wednesday morning of 10 January until Saturday morning 13 January, Unical uninterruptedly poured a foundation of approximately 8,600 m3 of concrete at Monasterolo di Savigliano (Cuneo). An automated warehouse for Monge & C. SpA, a leading manufacturer of dog and cat food, will be built on this monolithic foundation, which is almost 115 cm thick and covers an area of approximately one hectare.
This was the largest, single horizontal pouring ever carried out in Italy. Unical had already tried its hand with two other huge pourings, both in Turin, for the Intesa Sanpaolo skyscraper (13,400 m3) and the Piedmont Region building (10,500 m3), and although the Monge pouring was smaller in terms of the amount of concrete, it presented significant problems regarding the expanse.

The base body of the slab was constructed using an SCC structural concrete with a strength class C30/37, and which was allocated as follows: 1) for the underlying portion, representing approximately 2/3 of the slab, a concrete with special rheological characteristics which kept it workable for a prolonged period of time to allow the adhesion and fusion of the next layer of concrete; 2) for the surface portion, about 40 cm thick, a concrete with moderate hygrometric shrinkage with maximum values of 400 m/m. A Type II/A-LL 42.5 R cement produced at the Robilante plant and a micronized lime filler supplied by Nicem of Bergamo were used for both concretes.

The concrete required for the pouring was delivered mainly by Unical’s Monasterolo (1,800 m3), Sant'Albano Stura (over 2,800 m3) and Santena (about 3,200 m3) batching plants, with special help from the Orbassano and Villanova d'Asti batching plants which, besides serving the regular market, produced at least 600 m3 of SCC.
Located just 4 km from the construction site, the Monasterolo plant granted minimum  transportation times. The Sant'Albano Stura plant, situated inside one of Unical’s largest production and storage quarries, and the Santena plant, located south-east of Turin, ensured that the hourly production rates were maintained at the required levels, reaching peaks of 170 m3 per hour for an overall average of 120 m3 per hour during the entire 72 hours of pouring.