  Numerical simulations by means of the Monte Carlo method have been performed
to study the electrical properties of a two-dimensional composite filled with
rodlike particles. The main goal was to study the effect of the alignment of
such rods on the anisotropy of its electrical conductivity. A continuous model
was used. In this model, the rods have zero-width (i.e. infinite aspect ratio)
and they may intersect each other. To involve both the low conductive host
matrix, and highly conductive fillers (rods) in the consideration, a
discretization algorithm based on the use of a supporting mesh was applied. The
discretization is equivalent to the substitution of rods with the polyominoes.
Once discretized, the Frank--Lobb algorithm was applied to evaluate the
electrical conductivity. Our main findings are (i) the alignment of the rods
essentially affects the electrical conductivity and its anisotropy, (ii)the
discrete nature of computer simulations is crucial. For slightly disordered
system, high electrical anisotropy was observed at small filler content,
suggesting a method to enable the production of optically transparent and
highly anisotropic conducting films.
