The analysis of heat transfer and thermo-mechanical behavior is crucial to the leading edge of hypersonic vehicles under high thermal and mechanical loads due to severe aeroheating. The present paper proposes a time-adaptive loosely coupled strategy for the modeling and analysis of hypersonic intrinsic fluid thermal-structural characteristics. A framework of hypersonic computational coupling dynamics (HyCCD) is developed for integrating an independently developed program solving hypersonic aerothermodynamics and a finite element analysis professional software. The embedded adaptive time-step approach, hybrid interpolation strategy, and grid deformation method have taken into consideration coupling variables and their properties. A typical cylindrical leading edge is considered as the simulation model to study the effects of chemical nonequilibrium, aeroheating duration, flight trajectory, and shock interference. The time-adaptive loosely coupled analysis of aerothermostructural response provides a reliable, applicable and efficient prediction for the fluid thermal-structural coupling of hypersonic vehicles. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.