The present study has numerically predicted both the flow -induced and thermally-induced residual stresses and birefringence in injection o. injection/compression molded center -gated disks. Analysis system for entire molding process was developed based on an ap propriate physical modeling including a nonlinear viscoelastic fluid model, stress-optical law, a linear viscoelastic solid model, free volume theory for density relaxation phenomena and a photoviscoelasticity and so on. Part I presents physical modeling a nd typical numerical analysis results of residual stresses and birefringence in the injection molded center-gated disk. Thermal residual stress was found to be extensional near the center, compressive near the surface and tend to become toward tensional at the surface. A double-hump profile was obtained across the thickness in birefringence distribution: nonzero birefringence is found to be thermally induced, the outer peak is due to the shear flow and subsequent stress relaxation during the filling stage a nd the inner peak is due to the additional shear flow and stress relaxation during the packing stage. Predicted birefringence including both the flow -induced and thermally-induced one becomes quite similar to the experimental one.