Fluid–structure interactions are a crucial consideration in the design of many engineering systems, e.g. automobile, aircraft, spacecraft, engines and bridges. Failing to consider the effects of oscillatory interactions can be catastrophic, especially in structures comprising materials susceptible to fatigue. Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940), the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge, is probably one of the most infamous examples of large-scale failure. Aircraft wings and turbine blades can break due to FSI oscillations. A reed actually produces sound because the system of equations governing its dynamics has oscillatory solutions. The dynamic of reed valves used in two strokes engines and compressors is governed by FSI. The act of "blowing a raspberry" is another such example. The interaction between tribological machine components, such as bearings and gears, and lubricant is also an example of FSI. The lubricant flows between the contacting solid components and causes elastic deformation in them during this process. Fluid–structure interactions also occur in moving containers, where liquid oscillations due to the container motion impose substantial magnitudes of forces and moments to the container structure that affect the stability of the container transport system in a highly adverse manner. Another prominent example is the start up of a rocket engine, e.g. Space Shuttle main engine (SSME), where FSI can lead to considerable unsteady side loads on the nozzle structure. In addition to pressure-driven effects, FSI can also have a large influence on surface temperatures on supersonic and hypersonic vehicles.
Fluid–structure interactions also play a major role in appropriate modeling of blood flow. Blood vessels act as compliant tubes that change size dynamically when there are changes to blood pressure and velocity of flow. Failure to take into account this property of blood vessels can lead to a significant overestimation of resulting wall shear stress (WSS). This effect is especially imperative to take into account when analyzing aneurysms. It has become common practice to use computational fluid dynamics to analyze patient specific models. The neck of an aneurysm is the most susceptible to changes in to WSS. If the aneurysmal wall becomes weak enough, it becomes at risk of rupturing when WSS becomes too high. FSI models contain an overall lower WSS compared to non-compliant models. This is significant because incorrect modeling of aneurysms could lead to doctors deciding to perform invasive surgery on patients who were not at a high risk of rupture. While FSI offers better analysis, it comes at a cost of highly increased computational time. Non-compliant models have a computational time of a few hours, while FSI models could take up to 7 days to finish running. This leads to FSI models to be most useful for preventative measures for aneurysms caught early, but unusable for emergency situations where the aneurysm may have already ruptured.