Lightweight composite structures for high-technology applications have to fulfil high demands on low constructive weight combined with an adequate stiffness. In general, the low structural weight leads to high vibration amplitudes due to low forces of inertia and thus often causes an undesired sound radiation. This effect can be compensated by purposefully exploiting the high damping potential of textile-reinforced composites. For this, validated simulation models are necessary, which include draping effects of 3-D textile-reinforced structures. The paper makes a contribution to this challenging topic by presenting the results of extensive vibro-acoustic simulations and experiments concerning the influence of the fibre arrangement caused by draping the textile [1]. Draping textile preforms on 3-D shaped structures results in a complex fibre course. In general, the transfer of this complex fibre arrangement to a simulation model is not possible. Thus, within common Finite Element (FE) simulations the material coordinate system and consequently the fibres are aligned to either element or global coordinate systems. Using this assumption for dynamic simulations leads to a first estimation of the structural behaviour especially at low frequencies. To increase the accuracy at higher frequencies, it is necessary to consider an improved FE-mesh representing the real fibre arrangement. For this, a simulation of the draping process was done to determine the resulting fibre arrangement for the example of a tray geometry. Extensive draping tests using hybrid yarn based textile preforms were performed, which show a good correlation with the simulation. Based on the calculated fibre arrangement, a vibro-acoustic simulation model of the composite tray was built to perform modal analyses. In addition, composite trays were manufactured and tested with regard to their dynamic properties. Therfor, a VibroESPI-system was used, which allows a contactless full surfaced real-time measuring. The simulation based on the improved FE-model including complex fibre arrangement caused by draping shows a significantly higher correlation with the experiment than the simplified approach.