Heat partition in the<i>E</i>/<i>A</i>=8.5 MeV<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Ge</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mprescripts /><mml:mrow /><mml:mrow><mml:mn>74</mml:mn></mml:mrow><mml:mrow /><mml:mrow /></mml:mmultiscripts></mml:mrow></mml:math><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msup><mml:mrow><mml:mo>+</mml:mo></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>…

The excitation-energy distribution of projectilelike fragments formed in the E/A=8.5 MeV $^{74}\mathrm{d}$/rGe${+}^{165}$Ho reaction has been obtained by applying a statistical evaporation calculation to the difference between primary fragment mass yields derived from kinematic coincidence measurements and directly measured yields. A gradual transition from approximate equipartition of excitation energy for small energy losses to a division that favors the targetlike fragment for highly damped events is observed, in agreement with previous measurements. For a given energy loss, heat partition is found to correlate with the direction of net nucleon transfer. The variances of the excitation-energy distributions are shown to increase monotonically as a function of energy loss. The average data are compared with predictions of the nucleon exchange transport model. The results suggest that energy-loss mechanisms in addition to nucleon exchange may be important in the early stages of the collision.