  We investigate a model which couples diffusional melting and nanoscale
structural forces via a combined nano-mesoscale description. Specifically, we
obtain analytic and numerical solutions for melting processes at grain
boundaries influenced by structural disjoining forces in the experimentally
relevant regime of small deviations from the melting temperature. Though
spatially limited to the close vicinity of the tip of the propagating melt
finger, the influence of the disjoining forces is remarkable and leads to a
strong modification of the penetration velocity. The problem is represented in
terms of a sharp interface model to capture the wide range of relevant length
scales, predicting the growth velocity and the length scale describing the
pattern, depending on temperature, grain boundary energy, strength and length
scale of the exponential decay of the disjoining potential. Close to
equilibrium the short-range effects near the triple junctions can be expressed
through a contact angle renormalisation in a mesoscale formulation. For higher
driving forces strong deviations are found, leading to a significantly higher
melting velocity than predicted from a purely mesoscopic description.
