Variation of welded-joint hardness and tensile strength of a accelerated-cooled fine-grained ferritic-pearlitic steel with heat input was investigated. In a weld heat-affected zone, a softened zone was formed and it had lower hardness than that of a base metal. While the width of a softened zone increased continuously with an increase of heat input up to 100kJ/cm. the minimum hardness in a softned zone was almost constant after a continuos decrease up to 60KJ/cm. Because of a softened zone, the welded-joint was fractured in the HAZ and its maximum reduction of tensile strength was about 20%. Measured welded-joint tensile strength and calculated minimum tensile strength in a welded-joint was almost same, which means that the plastic restraint of a softened zone did not occur in this experiment. It is believed that as a softened zone width-to-specimen thickness ratio is as high as 2~6 in this experiment, the plastic restraint effect does not occur. Theoretical analysis shows that the plastic restraint effect occurs only when the ratio is below 0.5.