Abstract: A coupled Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH)-Peridynamics (PD) approach based on virtual particle and repulsive force is proposed to study fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems involving structural deformation and failure. This approach has both the advantage of PD solving discontinuous problems and the advantage of SPH simulating fluid flows. The solid domain and fluid domain are solved by PD and SPH, respectively, and the fluid-structure interfaces are treated by a contact algorithm between fluid particles and virtual particles. This algorithm can effectively prevent particle penetration by repulsive force and remedy the boundary deficiency of fluid particles by virtual particles to improve computational accuracy. With the PD-SPH approach, the problems, including an aluminium plate subjected to hydrostatic pressure and dam-break flows impacting on an elastic plate, are simulated. The obtained results agree well with the analytical solution or published numerical results, which demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of the coupled approach. Moreover, the coupled approach is employed to simulate the entire process of structural deformation, failure, and post-failure partial body movement under fluid action. It further verifies the applicability of the coupled PD-SPH approach in the simulation of FSI problems involving structural failure.