Combined ab initio,electron diffraction,molecular mechanics and vibrational investigations of 1,1 -dimethyl-trans-2-decalone

The conformational behavior of 1,1'dimethyl-trans-2-decalone was studied by combined ab initio, electron diffraction, molecular mechanics and vibrational procedures, and the molecule was found to exist in a distorted all-chair ground state with average C-C, C-H and CO bond distances of r_g = 1.543 Å ± 0.002, r_g = 1.122 Å ± 0.007, and r_g = 1.236 Å ± 0.012, respectively. The ab initio calculations were performed on an STO-3G minimal basis and are indicative of the growing usefulness of quantum-mechanical techniques in the study of medium-sized molecular systems.