Welding is a process of joining materials that have wide application in various industry sectors such as automotive, oil and gas, nuclear, naval, among others. Residual Stresses is often a cause of premature failure of critical components. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of residual stresses is extremely important in the design, on quality assurance and prevention of weldment failures. The objective of this study was developing a methodology that includes numerical and experimental analyses that are complementary. AISI 1020 steel samples were butt welded by GMAW process with weld metal in a single pass. Experiments were conducted at different heat source speeds in order to evaluate the influence of this parameter on the level of residual stresses generated. Subsequently, the samples were subjected to measurement of residual stress by diffraction X-ray method. Simultaneously, a numerical analysis of the residual stresses was performed with a commercial finite element software called ANSYS (17.0), and a 3D solid model for a nonlinear thermo-elastic-plastic analysis using the Birth and Death technique, where the elements are enabled and disabled along weld metal deposition. Experimental welding parameters such as geometry of the samples, heat transfer coefficients, thermal and mechanical properties which vary with temperature were used as input data in the numerical model. Finally, there was a comparison between the residual stresses determined experimentally by diffraction of X-rays and computed data by finite element method. A good agreement was observed between the two methods.