Strain energy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For strain energy of structures, see Energy principles in structural mechanics.
In a molecule strain energy is released when the constituent atoms are allowed to rearrange themselves in a chemical reaction or a change of chemical conformation in a way that angle strain, torsional strain, ring strain and/or steric strain are reduced.
Example: the heat of combustion of cyclopropane (696 kJ/mole) is higher than that of propane (657 kJ/mole) per methylene unit.
Compounds with unusually large strain energy are tetrahedranes, propellanes, cubanes, fenestranes and cyclophanes.