In view of the important significance of the study on oil shale in-situ fragmentation for improving the heat transfer efficiency, an indoor research method of oil shale fragmentation was put forward, namely freezing-thawing cycle method. The experimental mechanism, experiment table design, sample preparation, experimental data acquisition and analysis etc. were discussed in this paper. The freezing-thawing cycle experiment was carried out on oil shale crack propagation in single hole mainly by engineering simulation. According to the design requirements, 2 groups of specimen were prepared and the experiment table was established. Simultaneously, the used oil shale samples in each experiment stage were detected by ultrasonic detection method, which provides a feasible experiment scheme for oil shale in-situ fragmentation research and can be taken as reference to the heat transfer efficiency of oil shale research.