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The platooning of connected automated vehicles (CAV) possesses the significant potential of reducing energy consumption in the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). Moreover, with the rapid development of eco-driving technology, vehicle platooning can further enhance the fuel efficiency by optimizing the efficiency of the powertrain. Since road grade is a main factor that affects the energy consumption of a vehicle, the estimation of the road grade with high accuracy is the key factor for a connected vehicle platoon to optimize energy consumption using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. Commonly, the road grade is quantified by single consumer grade global positioning system (GPS) with the geodetic height data which is rough and in the meter-level, increasing the difficulty of precisely estimating the road grade.

As a critical part of auto-body, the design of tailgate not only affects the beauty, usability and safety of automobile, but also involves more and more issues about environmental protection and energy saving. Hence, it is of vital importance to investigate lightweight of tailgate. This paper mainly focuses on lightweight design of CFRP tailgate based on conventional SUV metal tailgate, which can be realized under the condition of meeting requirements of stiffness, modal and manufacturing with the adoption of multi-step optimization method. To start with, finite element (FE) model of metal tailgate is established. Meanwhile, the stiffness and modal analyses, including bending stiffness, torsional stiffness, lateral stiffness, vertical stiffness and free modal are set up. Then, the structural performances of metal tailgate are analyzed, and the topology optimization of CFRP tailgate is performed.