Frustration of freezing in a two dimensional hard-core fluid due to   particle shape anisotropy
  The freezing mechanism suggested for a fluid composed of hard disks [Huerta et al., Phys. Rev. E, 2006, 74, 061106] is used here to probe the fluid-to-solid transition in a hard-dumbbell fluid composed of overlapping hard disks with a variable length between disk centers. Analyzing the trends in the shape of second maximum of the radial distribution function of the planar hard-dumbbell fluid it has been found that the type of transition could be sensitive to the length of hard-dumbbell molecules. From the ${NpT}$ Monte Carlo simulations data we show that if a hard-dumbbell length does not exceed 15% of the disk diameter, the fluid-to-solid transition scenario follows the case of a hard-disk fluid, i.e., the isotropic hard-dumbbell fluid experiences freezing. However, for a hard-dumbbell length larger than 15% of disk diameter, there is evidence that fluid-to-solid transition may change to continuous transition, i.e., such an isotropic hard-dumbbell fluid will avoid freezing. 
A. Huerta, D. Tejeda, D. Henderson, A. Trokhymchuk
cond-mat.soft