ABSTRACT
This Chapter aims to re-familiarize hydrologists and soil scientists with the field of geomechanics and particularly concentrates on the concept of deformation of poroviscoelastic media of geological origin, such as soils and aquifers. It outlines the key concepts of stress, strain and related theories as well as models. A brief historical survey of the development of these concepts and related investigations has also been provided for the readers.
A summary of the classical models for linear elasticity, their background and the general forms of stress-strain relations in the context of creep-relaxation relations have been presented as Volterra integral equations of the second kind. A physical interpretation for the fractional version of Volterra integral equations of the second kind for elasticity has also been discussed.
