NATICK, Mass.—Joint research by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg, Miss., and the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center (Natick) has developed a family of new cloth-type structural components named “Hydrostatically Enabled Structural Elements,” or HESEs. U.S. Patent 8,209,911 was issued to Dr. Charles Welch, Dr. Kevin Abraham and Dr. Robert Ebeling of ERDC, along with Karen Buehler and Claudia Quigley of Natick, for the invention.