A housing, simulating the configuration of a container such as a glass bottle, includes an internal chamber for supporting a center post having an axial bore for receiving a biaxial accelerometer electrically connected to circuitry for detecting and recording the magnitude of the impact force applied externally to the housing. In a method for simulating the impact forces applied to glass bottles as they are conveyed in a bottling operation impact forces are applied at any angle to the housing and are transmitted to the accelerometer. The accelerometer is actuated to generate an output signal expressed in terms of the X and Y vectors of the impact force to the electrical circuitry. The output signal is processed to indicate the magnitude of the applied impact force.