What do you call it when you add energy to an inductor?

Question

When you add energy to a capacitor, you say that you are "charging it". (This is kind of a misnomer, since the total amount of charge in the capacitor is the same, but whatever.)

But what do you call it when you put current through an inductor, and it ________es up and forms a magnetic field?

Edit: Actually, using "charge" for a capacitor is not a misnomer, as shown below and in 'charge' etymology, though it leads to confusion, with people mistakenly thinking that capacitors store electric charge, when in actuality, the charge of energy just moves the electric charge from one plate to the other.

Answer 1

The word is simply energizing. It is actually used quite often when referring to superconducting magnets, which are nothing but inductors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnet#Persistent_mode

Answer 2

I am going to take your question literally: " ...what do YOU call it when..." (emphasis supplied). Where I take your 'you' to be me.

I call it charging (and discharging). When I was in college my teachers and fellow students called it charging (and discharging). When I was at work designing electronics, we called it charging (and discharging). The guys who I rubbed elbows with, who wound their own toroids and built power supplies, called it charging (and discharging). I also (infrequently) heard the term "energize/energizing" used; and (rarely) de-energize. That may not be politically or technically correct; but that's how the guys (and gals) I worked with, who actually made the stuff that actually flew on airplanes and spacecraft (and, indeed, enabled them to fly), talked. Nothing wrong with energize/de-energize; but charging/discharging an inductor is perfectly acceptable vernacular.

Think about it from a systems or macro point of view: With a cap you push current into the device to store energy in an electric field. With an inductor you push current into the device to store energy in a magnetic field. With a battery you push current into the device to store energy in the form of a chemical reaction. Discharging extracts energy from whichever field or form is fundamental to the device. The inductor has the neat attribute that you can extract that energy without reversing current flow; but that fact does not demand an alternative word set to "charging/discharging,"

Answer 3

Putting energy into an inductor is called "energizing", and removing energy from it is "de-energizing".

Answer 4

The term "charge" was used to refer to loading things with other things long before anyone knew what an electron was; the term "electric charge" derives from the earlier usage, but hardly renders the earlier usage obsolete. The act of adding compressed gas to a fire extinguisher, for example, is referred to as "charging" it, even though no electrical potential difference is induced. I would thus consider it perfectly proper to use the term "charge" with an inductor.

Answer 5

I've heard the term "excitation" with respect to magnetics ... I personally use the term "ramping", as in current ramping up and ramping down.

Answer 6

There is energy stored in an inductor, namely \$\frac{1}{2} * L * I^2\$

For instance, it is used as energy storage in switching power supplies.

For lack of a better word, I would choose to call it charging. Also, wikipedia does not discern between capacitance and inductance in the article time_constant, which relates to the process of releasing charge.

see http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/indeng.html

Answer 7

At first I was going to suggest 'currenting' since it's somewhat the opposite of 'charging' (current vs. voltage). That doesn't sound right as a verb though. I want to go with 'spin' since it connotes a continuous movement (of current) through the device.