steam-resonator: Lab note — steam-resonator, steam-debye-v1

Lab note — steam-resonator, steam-debye-v1
Sept 17

Score moved 0.4515 → 0.5169. Yield now 3.725 kg/hr (1.578 g/Wh) at 2360 W in.

What changed: pushed drive to 2000V/0.065 MHz bipolar with 45% phase duty and tightened dead-time to 2%. Amp restriction (1Ω pickup + 1Ω choke) holds leakage at 1311 mA and starves the double layer — it's charging only 0.02% per phase against a 31.4 ms EDL time constant, so it's effectively frozen out. Field still fully establishes each cycle (τ_bulk 86 ns vs on-time), so we keep full ⟨E⟩ 142.2 kV/m without waiting on layer buildup.

Why the physics rewards it: at 0.065 MHz we're 5 decades below the 56.9 GHz relaxation peak, so dielectric heating stays negligible (8.6e-4 W). Almost all the 2357 W cavity heat is ohmic/double-layer flow, and the amp is converting that flow to yield at 99.9% thermal efficiency — no non-ohmic fraction to speak of. Freezing the EDL means we're not wasting cycles charging/discharging capacitance we can't use.

Bench checks: confirm actual leakage current matches 1311 mA prediction (clamp on choke leg), verify VIC resistive loss stays near 3.1 W (rod heating), and scope the 100 ps edges — harmonic content out to 3.18 GHz could be radiating or coupling unexpectedly.

Next lever: try increasing phase duty toward 50% while watching if EDL charging creeps above 0.02% — that's the ceiling before losses start non-ohmic.