This paper presents a recent study on weld residual stress relief mechanisms associated with furnace-based uniform post-weld heat treatment (PWHT). Both finite element and analytical methods are used to quantitatively examine how plastic deformation and creep relaxation contribute to residual stress relief process at different stages of PWHT process. The key contribution of this work to an improved understanding of furnace based uniform PWHT can be summarized as follows:(1)Plastic deformation induced stress relief during PWHT can be analytically expressed by the change in material elastic deformation capacity (or elastic deformation limit) measured in terms of material yield strength to Young's modulus ratio, which has a rather limited role in overall residual stress relief during furnace based uniform PWHT.(2)The most dominant stress relief mechanism is creep strain induced stress relaxation, as expected. However, a rapid creep strain development accompanied by a rapid residual stress reduction during heating stage before reaching PWHT temperature is shown to contribute to most of the stress relief seen in overall PWHT process, suggesting PWHT hold time can be significantly reduced as far as residual stress relief is concerned.(3)A simple engineering scheme for estimating residual stress reduction is proposed based on this study by relating material type, PWHT temperature, and component wall thickness. •The paper clarified effects of plastic deformation and creep relaxation on weld residual stress relief during uniform PWHT.•Creep strain development is far more important than plastic strain, mostly completed even before hold time starts.•Plastic strain development is insignificant and be analytically described by a material elastic deformation capacity parameter.•An engineering estimation scheme is proposed for determining residual stress reduction resulted from furnace based PWHT.