  Four different reactions, $^{32}$S+$^{12}$C and $^{20}$Ne+$^{12}$C at 25 and
50 MeV/nucleon, have been measured with the FAZIA detector capable of full
isotopic identification of most forward emitted reaction products. Fragment
multiplicities, angular distributions and energy spectra have been measured and
compared with Monte Carlo simulations, i.e. the antisymmetrized molecular
dynamics (AMD) and the heavy-ion phase space exploration (HIPSE) models. These
models are combined with two different afterburner codes (HF$l$ and SIMON) to
describe the decay of the excited primary fragments. In the case of AMD, the
effect of including the clustering and inter-clustering processes to form bound
particles and fragments is discussed. A clear confirmation of the role of
cluster aggregation in the reaction dynamics and particle production for these
light systems, for which the importance of the clustering process increases
with bombarding energy, is obtained.
