  We report event-driven molecular dynamics simulations of the irreversible
gelation of hard ellipsoids of revolution containing several associating
groups, characterizing how the cluster size distribution evolves as a function
of the extent of reaction, both below and above the gel point. We find that in
a very large interval of values of the extent of reaction, parameter-free
mean-field predictions are extremely accurate, providing evidence that in this
model the Ginzburg zone near the gel point, where non-mean field effects are
important, is very limited. We also find that the Flory's hypothesis for the
post-gelation regime properly describes the connectivity of the clusters even
if the long-time limit of the extent of reaction does not reach the fully
reacted state. This study shows that irreversibly aggregating asymmetric
hard-core patchy particles may provide a close realization of the mean-field
model, for which available theoretical predictions may help control the
structure and the connectivity of the gel state. Besides chemical gels, the
model is relevant to network-forming soft materials like systems with
bioselective interactions, functionalized molecules and patchy colloids.
