Pick a conformer
Energy along the ring flip
Textbook values relative to the chair: twist-boat ≈ 5.5, boat ≈ 6.9, half-chair ≈ 10.8 kcal/mol (books differ by a few tenths). Click a point to show that conformer. The half-chair is a transition state: it cannot be built with tetrahedral angles, which is exactly why it is high in energy, so this page does not draw it.
Flex the boat family
boattwist-boatboat
Ring dihedrals
Eclipsed C–C bonds
Closest H···H across the ring
Energy (interpolated)
With all bond angles held at 109.47°, the chair is rigid but the boat family is flexible: it can twist continuously from one boat through the twist-boat to the next boat without changing a single bond angle. Every position of this slider passes the geometry check.
Let it relax
Optimize moves the chair, twist-boat or boat to its quantum-chemical geometry (ORCA, r2SCAN-3c, started from the ideal structure on screen; the boat with its two eclipsed bonds held). Watch the ring dihedrals and the C–C–C angles in the table below change, then press Back to ideal.
Geometry facts for the structure on screen
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C H
Click atoms to measure.