The computational fluid dynamics method is introduced to study the dynamic response of pressure transmission tubes in compressible flow. A simple theoretical model based on the flow structure was developed to reveal the physical mechanism of the tube dynamic response. According to the dominant variables in the model, the influence of Mach number, tube configuration and tube cooling was numerically studied with CFD tools. The CFD results indicate that the dynamic response characteristics of a given tube in compressible flow are significantly different from that in incompressible flow, which is important to the improvement of measurement accuracy in supersonic aerodynamic experiments. The tube effect in compressible flow includes the tap-flow interaction at the entrance of the tube and the signal damping inside the tube, and the latter is less important. The tap-flow interaction makes the pressure at the pressure tap different from the true wall pressure, and as a result the traditional models are inappropriate in compressible flow. The constraint of mass flow rate caused by the tapflow interaction contributes mainly to the pressure signal distortion in compressible flow, which was not considered in existing incompressible flow studies. The measuring pressure amplitude mainly depends on the mass flow rate through the pressure sensing hole and the stagnation enthalpy change of the inflow gas in the charge process. The influence of tube configuration is negligible for incompressible flow and low-frequency input signal, but significant for compressible flow and high-frequency signal. Generally, the measuring pressure amplitude of straight tubes is closer to the true value than that of mixed diameter tubes. It is discovered that the cooled tube wall causes more serious pressure signal damping than the adiabatic tube wall. Tube cooling can reduce the amplitude ratio by 0.1 in high enthalpy flow. In addition, a method of rapid estimation of amplitude ratios is developed based on the CFD database. (C) 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.