Hi Praveen,
Your modeling steps sounds good to me. It will be helpful to check several points:
1. Is the deformation large enough to cause plasticity?
2. Is large deflection turned on?
I replicate the steps you have described and I am able to obtain a nonlinear reaction force. (I cannot insert images today due to website error I think)
About the second question, yes, it is correct to expect the stress-strain curve to be nonlinear if plasticity happens. You can request the equivalent stress and equivalent total strain and plot them together. Be careful that when you plot the stress-strain curve, they are scoping to the same element or node, not the entire body, because the max stress and strain may not occur in the same location.
Here are an additional comment:
In static structural analysis, there is no dynamic effect thus the displacement rate does not matter. So you don't have to go through the trouble of defining 73 steps.
Regards,
Wenlong
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