In this study, the progressive inelastic deformation, so called, thermal ratchet phenomenon which can occur in high temperature structures of liquid metal reactor was simulated with thermal ratchet structural test facility and 316L stainless steel test cylinder. The thermal ratchet deformation at the reactor baffle cylinder of the liquid metal reactor can occur due to the moving temperature distribution along the axial direction as the sodium free surface moves up and down under the cyclic heat-up and cool-down transients. The ratchet deformation was measured with the laser displacement sensor and LVDTs after cooling the structural specimen which is heated up to 55$0^{circ}C$ with steep temperature gradients along the axial direction. The temperature distribution of the test cylinder along the axial direction was measured with 28 channels of thermocouples and was used for the ratchet analysis. The thermal ratchet deformation was analyzed with the constitutive equation of nonlinear combined hardening model which was implemented as ABAQUS user subroutine and the analysis results were compared with those of the test. Thermal ratchet load was applied 9 times and the residual displacement after 9 cycles of thermal load was measured to be 1.79mm. The ratcheting deformation shapes obtained by the analysis with the combined hardening model were in reasonable agreement with those of the structural tests.