无穷小应变理论
無穷小應變張量

在連續體的無限小變形中（位移梯度張量遠小於1，也就是 \|\nabla \mathbf {u} \|\ll 1），可以用有限應變理論中的任何一個有限應變張量（例如拉格朗日有限應變張量 \mathbf {E} ，或是尤拉有限應變張量 \mathbf {e} ）進行線性化。在線性化中，可以省略有限應變張量中的二次項或是非線性項，因此可得
\mathbf {E} ={\frac {1}{2}}\left(\nabla _{\mathbf {X} }\mathbf {u} +(\nabla _{\mathbf {X} }\mathbf {u} )^{T}+(\nabla _{\mathbf {X} }\mathbf {u} )^{T}\nabla _{\mathbf {X} }\mathbf {u} \right)\approx {\frac {1}{2}}\left(\nabla _{\mathbf {X} }\mathbf {u} +(\nabla _{\mathbf {X} }\mathbf {u} )^{T}\right)
或
 E_{KL}={\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial U_{K}}{\partial X_{L}}}+{\frac {\partial U_{L}}{\partial X_{K}}}+{\frac {\partial U_{M}}{\partial X_{K}}}{\frac {\partial U_{M}}{\partial X_{L}}}\right)\approx {\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial U_{K}}{\partial X_{L}}}+{\frac {\partial U_{L}}{\partial X_{K}}}\right)
以及
 \mathbf {e} ={\frac {1}{2}}\left(\nabla _{\mathbf {x} }\mathbf {u} +(\nabla _{\mathbf {x} }\mathbf {u} )^{T}-\nabla _{\mathbf {x} }\mathbf {u} (\nabla _{\mathbf {x} }\mathbf {u} )^{T}\right)\approx {\frac {1}{2}}\left(\nabla _{\mathbf {x} }\mathbf {u} +(\nabla _{\mathbf {x} }\mathbf {u} )^{T}\right)
或
 e_{rs}={\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{r}}{\partial x_{s}}}+{\frac {\partial u_{s}}{\partial x_{r}}}-{\frac {\partial u_{k}}{\partial x_{r}}}{\frac {\partial u_{k}}{\partial x_{s}}}\right)\approx {\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{r}}{\partial x_{s}}}+{\frac {\partial u_{s}}{\partial x_{r}}}\right)
線性化意味著連續體中特定點的物質坐標（material coordinate）和空間坐標（spatial coordinate）差異很小，拉格朗日描述和尤拉描述近似相等。因此，物質位移梯度張量和空間位移梯度張量的分量也相近相等。可得
 \mathbf {E} \approx \mathbf {e} \approx {\boldsymbol {\varepsilon }}={\frac {1}{2}}\left((\nabla \mathbf {u} )^{T}+\nabla \mathbf {u} \right)
或
 E_{KL}\approx e_{rs}\approx \varepsilon _{ij}={\frac {1}{2}}\left(u_{i,j}+u_{j,i}\right)
其中  \varepsilon _{ij}是無穷小應變張量（也稱為柯西應變張量、線性應變張量、小應變張量）的分量。
{\begin{aligned}\varepsilon _{ij}&={\frac {1}{2}}\left(u_{i,j}+u_{j,i}\right)\\&={\begin{bmatrix}\varepsilon _{11}&\varepsilon _{12}&\varepsilon _{13}\\\varepsilon _{21}&\varepsilon _{22}&\varepsilon _{23}\\\varepsilon _{31}&\varepsilon _{32}&\varepsilon _{33}\\\end{bmatrix}}\\&={\begin{bmatrix}{\frac {\partial u_{1}}{\partial x_{1}}}&{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{1}}{\partial x_{2}}}+{\frac {\partial u_{2}}{\partial x_{1}}}\right)&{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{1}}{\partial x_{3}}}+{\frac {\partial u_{3}}{\partial x_{1}}}\right)\\{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{2}}{\partial x_{1}}}+{\frac {\partial u_{1}}{\partial x_{2}}}\right)&{\frac {\partial u_{2}}{\partial x_{2}}}&{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{2}}{\partial x_{3}}}+{\frac {\partial u_{3}}{\partial x_{2}}}\right)\\{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{3}}{\partial x_{1}}}+{\frac {\partial u_{1}}{\partial x_{3}}}\right)&{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{3}}{\partial x_{2}}}+{\frac {\partial u_{2}}{\partial x_{3}}}\right)&{\frac {\partial u_{3}}{\partial x_{3}}}\\\end{bmatrix}}\end{aligned}}
或者使用不同的表示方式：
 {\begin{bmatrix}\varepsilon _{xx}&\varepsilon _{xy}&\varepsilon _{xz}\\\varepsilon _{yx}&\varepsilon _{yy}&\varepsilon _{yz}\\\varepsilon _{zx}&\varepsilon _{zy}&\varepsilon _{zz}\\\end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}{\frac {\partial u_{x}}{\partial x}}&{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{x}}{\partial y}}+{\frac {\partial u_{y}}{\partial x}}\right)&{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{x}}{\partial z}}+{\frac {\partial u_{z}}{\partial x}}\right)\\{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{y}}{\partial x}}+{\frac {\partial u_{x}}{\partial y}}\right)&{\frac {\partial u_{y}}{\partial y}}&{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{y}}{\partial z}}+{\frac {\partial u_{z}}{\partial y}}\right)\\{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{z}}{\partial x}}+{\frac {\partial u_{x}}{\partial z}}\right)&{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial u_{z}}{\partial y}}+{\frac {\partial u_{y}}{\partial z}}\right)&{\frac {\partial u_{z}}{\partial z}}\\\end{bmatrix}}
進一步來說，因為形變梯度可以表示成 {\boldsymbol {F}}={\boldsymbol {\nabla }}\mathbf {u} +{\boldsymbol {I}} 其中 {\boldsymbol {I}}是二階單位張量，可得
 {\boldsymbol {\varepsilon }}={\frac {1}{2}}\left({\boldsymbol {F}}^{T}+{\boldsymbol {F}}\right)-{\boldsymbol {I}}
另外，根據拉格朗日有限應變張量及尤拉有限應變張量的通用表示法，可得
 {\begin{aligned}\mathbf {E} _{(m)}&={\frac {1}{2m}}(\mathbf {U} ^{2m}-{\boldsymbol {I}})={\frac {1}{2m}}[({\boldsymbol {F}}^{T}{\boldsymbol {F}})^{m}-{\boldsymbol {I}}]\approx {\frac {1}{2m}}[\{{\boldsymbol {\nabla }}\mathbf {u} +({\boldsymbol {\nabla }}\mathbf {u} )^{T}+{\boldsymbol {I}}\}^{m}-{\boldsymbol {I}}]\approx {\boldsymbol {\varepsilon }}\\\mathbf {e} _{(m)}&={\frac {1}{2m}}(\mathbf {V} ^{2m}-{\boldsymbol {I}})={\frac {1}{2m}}[({\boldsymbol {F}}{\boldsymbol {F}}^{T})^{m}-{\boldsymbol {I}}]\approx {\boldsymbol {\varepsilon }}\end{aligned}}