Design of low elastic modulus and high strength TC4 porous scaffolds via new variable gradient strategies

•The porous scaffolds were designed via variable gradient strategies based on TPMS.•The porous scaffolds have lower elastic modulus and higher compressive strength.•Period number and variation magnitude obviously affect the compressive strength.•Variable gradient strategies can reasonably adjusting the material distribution. Low elastic modulus and high strength have always been the design goals of biomedical porous scaffolds. In this work, a series of porous scaffold models were designed via variable gradient strategies and successfully prepared using TC4 alloy and selective laser melting (SLM) technology. The results show that the porous scaffolds have lower elastic modulus and higher compressive strength compared with previous works. The compressive strength and permeability of porous scaffolds decreases with the increase of period number or the decrease of porosity variation magnitude, which is attributed to the variable gradient strategies reasonably adjusting the material distribution and aggregation degree of porous scaffolds.