A comparison of accelerated corrosion in laboratory and natural corrosion inside real bridge cables was carried out by focusing on the fatigue failure life of highstrength steel wires under both corrosion environments. Realization of accelerated corrosion depended on artificial salt spray test in laboratory and naturally corroded wires were taken out from replaced corroded cables. Uniform corrosion depth was calculated firstly by measuring mass loss, and fatigue tests were conducted to wire samples while tensile tests were carried out to partial specimens. The measured mechanical property indexes followed specific distributions, which was statistically analyzed due to the tensile results of corroded wires inside the replaced cable. Wires of different spatial positions inside the cable had a similar fatigue property by linearly fitting the relationship of stress amplitude and fatigue life in a double-log coordinate. What’s more, the fitted parameters could keep consistent with that of accelerated corroded wires under specific corrosion period. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/100