Response of three Athens metro underground structures in the 1999 Parnitha earthquake

The M_s 5.9 earthquake of 1999 produced valuable records in three underground structures, as follows: (a) in the just completed cut-and-cover station of Sepolia two accelerographs recorded the free-field and the station-base motion; (b) in the still under-construction tunnelled station of Monastiraki an accelerograph recorded the ground surface motion, and (c) in the nearby Kerameikos station, abandoned for non-technical reasons, the temporary prestressed-anchor piled (PAP) wall was still in place and produced a record of total seismic displacement at its top. Directly or indirectly utilising these records, the article outlines the results of numerical analyses aimed at ‘recovering’ the complete seismic response of the three underground structures. Particular emphasis is given to Sepolia station, where the developed accelerations (with PGA of about 0.17 g at the station base and 0.43 g at the station roof) are shown to have been almost exactly equal to the design accelerations according to the seismic code under the assumption that the station responds as an aboveground structure. The successful performance of the two temporary structures, in Monastiraki and Kerameikos (which had been designed against minimal acceleration levels but experienced ground-surface high-frequency accelerations of the order of 0.50 g) is explained through dynamic response analyses.