Slow to converge, or failing?

For picture see Stacked flow plates - model simplification - #5 by DavidJ

I’ve since removed some parts and combined others to get mesh manageable.

I think I must be missing some basic settings/options - my previous FEA system was very different from this. The names used in contact don’t mean much to me.

I’m very confused now - Tie constraints or Tie contacts ?? I have contacts between parts.

There was mention of applying loads ‘gently’ - what is procedure to do that?