Weld distortion and residual stresses are two major issues in the fabrication process. Numerical techniques are being tried out to accurately predict the structural integrity of the welding. Interpass time in the multipass welding is an important parameter which influences the weld distortion and residual stresses. In this study two pass tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding of 6 mm mild steel plates has been analyzed using Finite element analysis (FEA) software Sysweld and parametric study is conducted with different interpass time. The temperature distribution, distortion and residual stresses are calculated using three dimensional finite element model (FEM) considering phase transformations in the material. The transient thermo-metallurgical analysis followed by elasto-plastic analysis is carried out using temperature dependent and phase dependent material properties. The material deposition in the multipass welding is numerically simulated using chewing gum method, where dummy phase and dummy material are assigned for the element activation. The phase proportions are calculated by assigning suitable phase kinetics parameter extracted from continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagram of a given material. Experiments are conducted for validation after given edge preparation and using same material as filler wire. The FEM analysis is carried out for eight cases with different time interval between passes, starting from 30 s to 240 s in the steps of 30 s. FEM results are verified with experimentally measured values. It is found that the time interval between passes has less influence on the residual stresses but significantly affects the distortion and phase proportion due to the first pass preheating effect on second pass and second pass postheating effect on first pass. © (2013) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.