The aim of this experiment is to investigate the effect of weld bead profile on residual stress in steel welded joints. Generally welding of thick steel plate requires high heat input and this leads to poor mechanical properties in the welded joint. The recently developed low heat input submerged arc welding (hereinafter called "SAW") process may offer a solution. The weld bead profile is different from that of conventional welding. It is well known that lower weld heat input can reduce residual stress but the effect of weld bead profile on residual stress is not clarified. This experiment will clarify the difference of residual stress distribution in welded joint manufactured by conventional process and the new method. This work is a part of a collaboration between University of Manchester and JFE Steel Corporation (Japan). The welding process used for the samples is applied to manufacturing pipelines and shipbuilding.