Based on the Kohn-Sham Pauli potential and the Kohn-Sham electron density, the upper bound of the Pauli kinetic energy is tested as a suitable replacement for the exact Pauli kinetic energy for application in orbital-free density functional calculations. It is found that bond lengths for strong and moderately bound systems can be qualitatively predicted, but with a systematic shift toward larger bond distances with a relative error of 6% up to 30%. Angular dependence of the energy-surface cannot be modeled with the proposed functional. Therefore, the upper bound model is the first parameter-free functional expression for the kinetic energy that is able to qualitatively reproduce binding curves with respect to bond distortions. (C) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.