A thorough understanding of the effects of chain ordering on solute partitioning and transport across biomembranes requires a detailed account of various dissolution processes in lipid bilayers. In this study, the dissolution properties and related molecular processes for noble gases in the alkyl chain region of lipid bilayers were obtained by means of molecular dynamics simulation. The excess chemical potential exhibits a plateau value in the ordered peripheral region followed by a steep decline near the center of the bilayer. The strong entropic effects as manifested by the larger Barclay-Butler constants than commonly encountered in hydrocarbon solvents indicate that solute partitioning into membranes is driven primarily by changes of lipid chain conformation or/and an extra confinement of solute in the bilayer interior. Solute partitioning into lipid bilayers is analyzed in terms of two contributions: (1) the free energy for cavity creation to accommodate a solute, which is analyzed by scaled particle theory; and (2) the interaction energy between the inserted solute and surrounding molecules in the bilayer. The unfavorable free energy for cavity creation is found to be primarily responsible for the substantial decrease of solubility into the membranes from that into a hydrocarbon solvent (dodecane) when the solute size is increased. The observed linear decrease of the excess chemical potential with solute surface area arises from linear but opposite dependencies of the reversible work for cavity creation and the intermolecular interaction energy on solute surface area and may be described by an anisotropic surface-tension model.