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Full interaction between structural and fluid domains must be considered for light structures immersed in heavy fluid (e.g. thin steel shells in water). The structural-acoustic design sensitivity analysis provides information on the effect of the design variable on acoustic performance, which makes it a key step for noise control and structural-acoustic optimization. This study uses the finite element method (FEM) to model the structure domain, while the fast multipole boundary element method (BEM) is applied to the exterior acoustic domain. An adjoint operator approach is developed to calculate the sensitivity of the radiated sound power with respect to the design variables, which can be any structural or fluid parameter (e.g. fluid or structural density, Poisson’s ratio, Young’s modulus, and geometric measures). Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the validity and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.