Abstract: Preformed fabrics are integral multilayer fabrics with rough shape of the finished products.They are essential reinforcing materials for making high-performance and net-shape composite materials,which are currently developed for the application areas such as aviation and aerospace and so on. The fabric introduced in this study is a woven fabric in the shape of straight pipe for shaping winding, which can be used directly for winding rotating composite structures without cutting and it has the advantages of low cost and wide adaptability. In order to weave such fabric, two sets of grid lines, which respectively represent warp and weft, were used for gridding the solid surface. The warp yarns were designed along the circumferential direction and weft yarns in the generatrix direction. The gridding surface was then spread out and the shape of preformed fabric was obtained.

Key words: preformed fabric; shape-imitation; straight pipe; design