A transient lumped heat pipe formulation for conventional heat pipes is presented and the lumped analytical solutions for different boundary conditions at the evaporator and condenser are given. For high temperature heat pipes with a radiative boundary condition at the condenser, a nonlinear ordinary differential equation is solved. In an attempt to reduce computer demands, a transient lumped conductive model has been developed for noncondensible gas-loaded heat pipes. The lumped flat-front transient model was extended by accounting for axial heat conduction across the sharp vapor-gas interface. The analytical solutions for conventional and gas-loaded heat pipes were compared with the corresponding numerical results of the full two-dimensional conservation equations and experimental data, with good agreement.