Welding of structure produces welding residual stresses which influence buckling strength, brittle fracture strength and cold crack on the weld parts. Therefore, it is very important to accurately analyze the residual stress before welding in order to guarantee the safety of weldment. If the weld length is long enough compared to the thickness and the breadth of plate, thermal and mechanical behaviors in the middle portion of the plate are assumed to be uniform along the thickness direction(z-axis). Thus, the following conditions(so-called plane deformation) can be assumed for the plate except near its end;1) distributions of stress and strain are independent on the z-axis;2) plane normal to z-axis before deformation remains plane during and after deformation. In this paper, plane-deformation thermal elasto-plastic problem is formulated by being based on the finite element method. Moreover special regards and paid to the fact that material properties in elastic and plastic region are temperature-dependence. And the method to solve the plane-deformation thermal elasto-plastic problem is shown by using the incremental technique. From the results of analysis, the characterisics of distribution of welding residual stress and plastic strain with the production mechanism are clarified.