Bed compaction effect on dam break flow over erodible bed; experimental and numerical modeling

•Experimental findings of bed compaction effect upon dam break flow erodible bed.•Numerical modelling using standard VOF method is conducted based upon:•Turbulence closure schemes; RNG, k-ε and k-ω for free surface variation.•Van Rijn, Meyer-Peter-Muller and Nielson approaches for bed load sediment transport.•Air entrainment in terms of the void fraction is investigated.•Experimental and numerical outputs are compared quantitatively and visually.