A heat transfer (DEM) model for application in the particle based discrete element simulation method is presented. It utilizes an analytical solution of the heat diffusion equation for a solid spherical particle to obtain temporal and radial solutions of the temperature distributions within the particles. This radial temperature model avoids the shortcomings of the usual assumption of spatially uniform temperature profiles in particles. The concept is designed to minimize computing power and memory requirement in order to allow the computation of granular assemblies consisting of a large number of particles. Results obtained for a particle subject to transient convective boundary conditions are compared with a Crank-Nicholson implicit scheme as numerical reference solution. A first implementation of the radial temperature model in a discrete element code reveals the additional computational cost as negligible compared to the demands of contact identification and force calculation.