The design process for dynamical models has to consider all the properties of a mechanical system that have an effect on its dynamical response. In multi-body dynamics, flexible bodies are frequently modeled as rigid, resulting in non-valid modeling of the pre-stress effect. In this research a focus on the pre-stress effect for a flexible body assembled in a rigid-flexible multibody system is presented. In a rigid-flexible assembly a flexible body is modeled with an absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) of finite elements. The geometrical properties of the flexible body are evaluated based on the frequency response and compared with the experimental values. An experiment including the pre-stress effect and large displacements is designed and the measured values of the displacement are compared to the numerical results in order to validate the dynamical model. The pre-stress was found to be significant for proper numerical modeling. The partially validated numerical model was used to research the effect of different parameters on the dynamical response of a pre-stressed, rigid-flexible assembly.