We report on a new class of elastic architected materials with hybrid unit cells, consisting of
discrete elastic elements with non-convex strain energy and one convex (but possibly
nonlinear) elastic element, to obtain a reversible multifunctional material with extreme
energy dissipation. The proposed design exploits numerically optimized nonlinearities in the
force–displacement response of the sub-unit-cell elements to approach the theoretical limit
of specific damping capacity in any material, ψ th= 8. Specific damping capacities up to ψ …