A phenomenological relationship between molecular geometry change and conformational energy change

A linear correlation is established between the change in the axial/equatorial conformational energy difference and the change in the molecular geometry transformation during conformational inversion in substituted six-membered ring systems, namely in the 1-substituted cyclohexane/silacyclohexane, cyclohexane/N-substituted piperidine and 1-substituted silacyclohexane/P-substituted phosphorinane compound families, and for the analogous gauche/anti conformational isomerism in 1-substituted propanes/1-silapropanes. The nuclear repulsion energy parameterizes the molecular geometry, and changes in the conformational energy between the related compound families are linearly correlated with the changes in the nuclear repulsion energy difference based on DFT (B3LYP, M06-2X), G3B3, and CBS-QB3 calculations. This correlation reproduces the sometimes remarkable contrast between the conformational behavior of analogous compounds, e.g., the lack of a general equatorial preference in silacyclohexanes.