The objective of the research presented here is the investigation of the interaction of guided waves with welds, defects and other non-uniformities in steel plates loaded by liquid. The investigation has been performed using numerical simulation for 2D and 3D cases by the finite differences method, finite element method and measurement of 3D distributions of acoustic fields. Propagation of the S0 mode in a steel plate and its interaction with non-uniformities was investigated. It was shown that using the measured leaky wave signals in the water loading of the steel plate and by application of signal processing, the 3D ultrasonic field structure inside and outside of the plate