Patent ID: 7798777

Claim:
A method of operating a gas turbine engine, said method comprising: channeling airflow towards an impeller of a centrifugal compressor that includes an axially oriented inlet, a radially oriented outlet, and a chamber extending therebetween, wherein the direction of airflow in the chamber changes from an axial flow at the inlet to a radially outward flow at the outlet; channeling airflow through the impeller inlet into a convergent-divergent flow path defined within the impeller chamber downstream from the inlet; channeling airflow from a third cross-sectional area defined upstream from a first cross-sectional area, said third cross-sectional area is larger than said first cross-sectional area; and channeling airflow from said first cross-sectional area of the flow path into a second cross-sectional area of the flow path defined downstream from the first cross-sectional area, wherein the second cross-sectional area is smaller than the first cross-sectional area.