AbstractMolecular structures of 26 organosilicon compounds have been optimized usingab initiocalculations at the 3‐21G* (modified) level. From these optimized structures, the internal coordinates have been deformed and the variation of the total molecular energy has been studied. Parameters for stretching and bending deformations are reported herein. The bending potential for the SiOSi bond which has an unusual flexibility is also included. Nonbonding interactions are described in terms of steric and electrostatic potentials. For systems which do not include bond resonance effects, torsional behavior is well described by steric potentials with van der Waals radii 20% larger than the previous values and simple electrostatic potential (monopole‐monopole) with net atomic charges obtained fromab initioor Extended Huckel Theory calculations. The nonbonding potentials, as defined in this study, have an advantage in that they allow for the computation of torsional barriers without torsional potentials, in the case of single bonds where no additional electronic effects interfere. As an example, it is shown that no torsional potentials are necessary to estimate the torsional barriers in the case of ethane. The newly defined potentials are used to study the torsional barrier in hexamethyldisiloxane and the conformation of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4). The most stable calculated conformation of D4, coincides with the experimentally determined structure. This study shows that the most stable conformation is determined by the steric repulsion of methyl