Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) increasingly makes its mark as a material for use in civil engineering works. Not only for the rehabilitation of structures, as already seen in Italy, but also for new construction projects. Bridges, houses and many other structures need a method of efficient, rapid construction in our fast, technological world.

The paper will report the analysis of the structure that is going to be built for the Solar Decathlon China competition in Datong, China in August 2013 by the team made up of Ghent University in Ghent, Belgium, Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA, and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, NY. This one-family house is constructed in FRP elements, both pultruded 1-D elements and innovative 2-D elements. It is the first time that these panels will have been used for structural walls.

The paper includes two lodes, the first concerning the research of an analytical solution and a model of the 2-D sandwich FRP elements used in the project and the second related to the structural design of the one-family house which will be built in Datong, China.

The mother lode is the design stated above and arise from the cooperation of the authors with the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.

The structural design of this house involves specifically two main aspects: the elements and the joints. For the first aspect 1-D and 2-D structural elements have been used and in particular pultruded FRP profiles and new FRP sandwich panels. For the second several different solutions have been proposed for the connection of the panels, especially in relation to the connection between the foundation and the vertical panel.

Another aspect is the search for analytical solutions for the sandwich panels to be used in the building of this project. Through FEM models and comparing models with tests, it has been possible to find numerical models that can represent the real behavior of the panels.