In order to clarify the mechanical behavior of welding crack and to evaluate the mechanical characteristics of welded parts in thick plate, it is very important to accurately predict the welding deformation and residual stress including transient state before welding. In this paper, the theory of a three-dimensional elasto-plastic problem for the analysis of mechanical phenomenon of welding joint on the plate is developed into an efficient and accurate method based on the finite element method, and then several examples are considered by using the proposed model. The results of numerical analyses are discussed in the viewpoint of the mechanical characteristics of the distribution of three-dimensional welding residual stresses, plastic strains and their production mechanism on the thick plate.