SUMMARYFractional calculus has been successfully applied to characterize the rheological property of viscoelastic materials; however, geomaterials were seldom involved in fractional order constitutive models (FOCM), and the topic of first loading and then unloading is rarely discussed through fractional calculus. In this paper, mechanical properties are considered as a ‘spectrum’, both ends of which are elasticity and viscosity, and the fractional order can be utilized to describe such properties quantitatively. In addition to conditions such as creep, stress‐relaxation, and constant‐strain‐rate loading, stress‐strain relationship under the condition of first loading and then unloading was also derived using FOCM. FOCM is then adopted to simulate triaxial tests of geomaterials under corresponding conditions. A comparison of test and numerical results demonstrates that FOCM can reasonably describe the mechanical characteristics of geomaterials.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.