The invention relates to an intermittent fault detection method of a linear discrete time-delay system. The intermittent fault detection method comprises the steps that virtual input and virtual output are introduced according to the characteristics of the linear discrete time-delay system, a linear dimensionless discrete time-delay system is constructed, and the linear dimensionless discrete time-delay system is transformed into a linear dimensionless discrete time-invariant system by using a lifting method; on the basis of designing a state observer, truncated residual is constructed by introducing a sliding time window, and the statistical characteristics of the truncated residual are analyzed; and two hypothesis tests are used for setting detection thresholds of the intermittent faultoccurrence moment and vanishing moment respectively, amplitude of an intermittent fault is estimated, and the detectability problem of the intermittent fault is analyzed. The intermittent fault detection method of the linear discrete time-delay system is based on the lifting method and the designed state observer, the new truncated residual is designed by introducing the sliding window, the intermittent fault detection process can be quantitatively described, intermittent fault detection can be timely and effectively detected, the fault detection rate is increased, and the fault false alarm rate and missing report rate are decreased.