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Purpose: This paper aims to present a novel structural reliability analysis scheme with considering the structural strength degradation for the wing spar of a generic hypersonic aircraft to guarantee flight safety and structural reliability. Design/methodology/approach: A logarithmic model with strength degradation for the wing spar is constructed, and a reliability model of the wing spar is established based on stress-strength interference theory and total probability theorem. Findings: It is demonstrated that the proposed reliability analysis scheme can obtain more accurate structural reliability and failure results for the wing spar, and the strength degradation cannot be neglected. Furthermore, the obtained results will provide an important reference for the structural safety of hypersonic aircraft. Research limitations/implications: The proposed reliability analysis scheme has not implemented in actual flight, as all the simulations are conducted according to the actual experiment data. Practical implications: The proposed reliability analysis scheme can solve the structural life problem of the wing spar for hypersonic aircraft and meet engineering practice requirements, and it also provides an important reference to guarantee the flight safety and structural reliability for hypersonic aircraft. Originality/value: To describe the damage evolution more accurately, with consideration of strength degradation, flight dynamics and material characteristics of the hypersonic aircraft, the stress-strength interference method is first applied to analyze the structural reliability of the wing spar for the hypersonic aircraft. The proposed analysis scheme is implemented on the dynamic model of the hypersonic aircraft, and the simulation demonstrates that a more reasonable reliability result can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]